In the autumn of this year Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions will jointly release the third album by the melodic black metal band Obšar from Slovakia. The album’s name is Propastnyk, and it continues exploring the band’s inspirations from Ruthenian nature, culture, mythology, and demonology.
To help introduce the new album, what we have for you today is a stirring and beautifully multi-faceted song from Propastnyk named “Vorožky“. Continue reading »
The first time we featured the music of Black Hill Cove at this site two years ago we described it as “bleak and furious”, “both emotionally and ‘physically’ bruising and battering”, with every ingredient seizing attention and collectively creating “a viscerally intense experience”.
At that time the music we focused on was from this Portuguese band’s powerful debut album Broken, an amalgam of hardcore, thrash, and sludge that was released by Raging Planet Records. Black Hill Cove and Raging Planet have followed up that album with a new one named Ex Tenebris Vita that they released in April of this year, and to help call attention to it we’re now premiering a video for a song off the album named “Eternal“. Continue reading »
(We present DGR‘s review of the debut album by Oakland CA-based Darkness Everywhere, which was released in May by Creator-Destructor Records. The fantastic cover art is by Adam Burke.)
It’s weird to think about how wildly melodeath-ascendant the past few years have been. It’s strange when you’re within the bubble of a nostalgia cycle and are fully aware of it, as opposed to recognizing it from the outside and approaching it more from the cultural anthropology side of things.
There are even projects dedicated to exploring different eras, which is not something you would normally ascribe to a style that saw such a glut of artists in the late ’90s and early ’00s that it almost accidentally codified into the blueprint that was then widely followed to the point of mundanity.
Yet there are projects dedicated to both the retro and modern aspects, and those who split the difference between the two. In the case of musician Ben Murray and his latest exploration of the style in Darkness Everywhere, it’s one made with a ton of influence from that late ’90s to early ’00s period in which melodeath became its own thing and the words for the genre were no longer existing as just an abbreviation of a way to describe a less sewage-obsessed form of death metal. Continue reading »
Yesterday I took that photo up there from the window of a Cessna prop-plane that was flying me and a handful of other passengers from Seattle to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. I made the trip to be at the Orcas wedding of a friend that will happen later today.
It’s just as beautiful here on the ground as it is from the air. There was a hell of a pre-wedding party last night on a shorefront. There’s a photo of the view from that location after the jump.
The point of this isn’t to cause jealousy among readers, but to explain why I haven’t pulled together a Saturday roundup of new music and videos, and probably won’t be compiling a Shades of Black column for tomorrow either. Continue reading »
(NCS writer DGR dives deep into the newest album by the Nightrage melodic death metal band, which was released in late May by Despotz Records.)
If you’ll indulge us for a few, there were a lot of releases that came out towards the tail end of May/beginning of June. Right about the time when we were all just returning home from floating around at fests across the country, and now I’m playing the desperate game of catch-up to write about all the stuff I was listening to while traveling from place to place.
Nightrage‘s new album Remains Of A Dead World is a genuinely interesting beast. If you’ve been following the band for its multi-decade existence then you’ll likely know that one of the unfortunate constants within the group is an ever-changing vocalist position. In fact, it wasn’t until the run of vocalist Ronnie Nyman‘s recorded works between 2015 and 2022 that Nightrage had actually had someone in the vocalist slot for more than two albums. Save for founder Marios Iliopoulos, the whole of Nightrage‘s lineup has always been on the fluid side – it just always seemed like the vocalist spot was changing out more than most.
Remains Of A Dead World, otherwise, is interesting because it was recorded with what was probably the most stable lineup of Nightrage in some time (and since the band has seen the exit of drummer George “Dino” Stamoglou, replaced by journeyman drummer Fotis Benardo), except for the vocalist slot, now occupied by newcomer Konstantinos Togas after having spent some time in that role helping the band on the live front. Continue reading »
photo by Tim Hubbard
(Today we present an excellent interview by our Comrade Aleks of Mike Browning from the terrific Nocturnus AD, whose latest mind-bender of an album is out now on Profound Lore.)
Nocturnus AD is the brainchild of Mike Browning, who started his career in the early ’80s in Morbid Angel as drummer and vocalist, and continued it in bands like Nocturnus and Acheron, among others. Nocturnus AD serves not just as continuation of Mike’s past works, but strictly follows the ideas he put into Nocturnus’ albums back in the very early ’90s. Together with Belial Koblak (guitars), Demian Heftel (guitars), Josh Holdren (keyboards), and Kyle Sokol (bass) he explores the occult side of technical sci-fi death metal.
Nocturnus AD‘s new full-length Unicursal was released on May 17th by Profound Lore Records, and we were lucky to catch Mike and learn more about his new album. Continue reading »
Full disclosure: In writing about the music of Hvile I Kaos, I run up hard against my technical limitations. It’s more than the ever-present fact that I’m self-taught and formally un-trained in writing about music of any kind, and not a musician either. In the case of Hvile I Kaos the limitations are more severe, because the principal instrument is a cello, because classical music traditions play important roles, and because esoteric studies provide much of the inspiration, and my ear and mind are even more untrained in those contexts.
A serious student of classical chamber music (and backwoods folk music) would have a far finer appreciation for the nature of the Hvile I Kaos compositions and the demands and achievements of the performances. A serious student of esoteric spiritualism, and of the invocation of demonic spirits in particular, would make far better connections between the inspirations and the music’s moods and maneuvers, which have a ritualistic conception. In my case, it may be more like serenading sheep.
Of course, these limitations and the daunting challenges that flow from them haven’t stopped me from writing about Hvile I Kaos at our site, a habit I’ve indulged off and on for nearly the last seven years (as you can see here). Sheep have feelings and I suspect are moved by serenades, but unlike sheep (for better or worse) I can attempt to express the feelings ignited by the music, which is mainly what I’ve done before and now will try to do again.
The task this time is bittersweet, because Hvile I Kaos has announced that Lower Order Manifestations, the album we’re premiering today on the eve of its July 12 release by In Vitae Manifestatio in partnership with Eisenwald and House of Inkantation, is the project’s final record. Continue reading »
(In April of this year the debut album by the Greek one-man dissonant black/death metal unit Kvadrat released its debut album The Horrible Dissonance of Oblivion in collaboration with Nuclear Winter Records and Total Dissonance Worship (reviewed by us here). Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of the person behind the band.)
Ivan Agakechagias is the sole member of Greek death/black metal project Kvadrat. Since 2015 Ivan recorded enough materials for only one EP, Ψυχική Αποσύνθεση (2012), and a split album alongside Moeror and Human Serpent (2021). It’s interesting that the goal was to collect money that will be used to cover some of the basic needs of the animals that were affected by the destructive fires that took place in Greece, including food, medical care, and the financial support of the early costs of anyone who is interested in adopting one of these innocent animals.
Finally, Ivan collected enough ideas for the full-length album The Horrible Dissonance of Oblivion that was released on April 4th by Ivan himself, Nuclear Winter Records, and Total Dissonance Worship.
Disturbing, uncomfortable, and ruinous, this material spreads both well-hidden melancholy and distilled aggression. Continue reading »
As you gaze upon the nightmarish cover art for the Javanese band Vultures‘ debut EP, you can understand the title they chose for the record: Divine Retribution Unleashed. But then also consider what horrors might await if those hideous beings became your companions in dreams, crouched upon your chest during an… eternal sleep.
“Eternal Sleep” is indeed the name of the song we’re premiering today from Divine Retribution Unleashed in advance of the EP’s joint release in different formats on July 15th by the multi-national triumvirate of Death in Pieces, Onyx Stone Blood Records, and Oldskull Production.
It’s one of 6 songs on the EP, all of them connected to each other to form a single storyline, with lyrics and events drawn from the Qur’an to narrate subjects such as “Pharaoh and Moses, war, death, aftermath, and doomsday”. Or, to put it differently, the narrative represents (in the band’s words) “a reminder of the destruction that has occurred in the past, as well as the destruction that will occur in the future, which is just a matter of time”. Continue reading »
We have written frequently over the last six years about the music of the Italian band Thecodontion, whose primeval and prehistoric thematic interests have been as interesting and erudite as their guitar-less but ever-evolving formulations of death metal. And so we were highly intrigued to learn that Thecodontion vocalist G.E.F. had started a new band named Clactonian, joined by Thecodontion drummer V.P. (also in SVNTH) and Finnish musicians who include Ashen Tomb on the resume.
Like Thecodontion, the thematic interests of Clactonian are rooted in prehistory, and particularly the Paleolithic Age. The name itself is a term given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tools made by an extinct species of archaic humans who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. (You can find more about here.)
Clactonian‘s debut demo, which we’re premiering today, is entitled Dea Madre (“Mother Goddess” in Italian). It too has prehistoric connotations, because that title refers to the famous Venus of Willendorf, a small figurine discovered in 1908 that’s estimated to have been made around 29,500 years ago. As this article discusses, researchers have speculated that the figure and others like it represented an early fertility deity, perhaps… a mother goddess. The figurine’s image features in the cover art of Dea Madre, with notable modifications in keeping with the music.
But what about the music on the demo? Although you might guess that it is linked to the musical interests of Thecodontion, it instead pursues a different path, a path of early bestial black/death metal that (as G.E.F. has told us) draws strong influence from Beherit but also should appeal to fans of Archgoat, early Bathory, and some bass-driven bands like Barathrum or early Necromantia for the slower sections. Continue reading »